THE brother of one of three drug dealers killed in the notorious Rettendon murders, has been jailed for dealing cocaine.

Russell Tate, 49, formerly of Basildon, but who now lives in Paxton Hill, St Neots, Cambridgeshire, was jailed for 16 years after pleading guilty to conspiracy to supply 34 kilos of cocaine and conspiracy to launder money.

Tate was one of 35 people arrested as part of Operation Eaglewood.

Tate’s brother Pat was killed alongside drug dealers Tony Tucker and Craig Rolfe in December 1995.

The three men were shot dead while they waited in a parked Range Rover, on a snowy farm track in Rettendon.

It is believed they were about to carry out a drug deal when they were executed.

Michael Steele, 66, of Great Bentley, and Jack Whomes, 48, of Suffolk, were jailed for life in January, 1998, for the slaying of the Basildon drug barons.

Operation Eaglewood also snared Essex criminals who admitted being part of a £100million cocaine ring smashed by undercover police.

Among them were brothers Perry and Gavin Silver and drug dealer Robert Gregory.

For months, intelligence officers from London’s Met Police had the 35-strong drug dealing and money-laundering gang under surveillance.

The court heard the gang’s kingpins earned more than £100million after running their operation from a run-down taxi garage in London.

They took in regular deliveries of cocaine which they repackaged and distributed.

Crooks could also visit the gang’s base and exchange bags of sterling for smaller 500 euro notes.

Officers planted a bug in the office of the former taxi garage, in Paddington, London, where they soon realised it fronted a vast criminal empire.

After ten months of surveillance and bugging, police carried out raids across London and Essex.

Joseph Mulvey, 25, of Dry Street, Basildon, was jailed for five-and-a-half years after he pleaded guilty to money laundering and conspiracy to supply cocaine.

Perry Silver, 52, of Mariskals, Pitsea, was given a 40-week suspended jail term after pleading guilty to acting as a courier for the laundered cash.

His brother, Gavin Silver, 48, of Philmead Road, Benfleet, admitted money laundering and was jailed for 15 months.

He was first jailed for seven years as a 19-year-old in 1981, for kicking teenager Martin Powell to death in a Basildon subway. Then in November 2008, he was jailed for 15 months for a road rage attack on Wayne Dowsett, at the Sadlers Farm roundabout in Benfleet.

Robert Gregory, 41, of Oak Avenue, Crays Hill, was jailed for two years and nine months after admitting money laundering and supplying steroids.

Completing the south Essex set was Dawn Adams, 36, of Clay Hill Road, Basildon. She was given a 20-week suspended jail term and 100 hours of unpaid work after pleading guilty to money laundering.

Speaking after the case at Southwark Crown Court, Det Supt Steve Richard, head of the Met Police’s Special Intelligence Section, said Operation Eaglewood had dealt a “huge blow” to the Class A drugs industry.

Among the gang to be sentenced was also hero fireman Simon Ford, 41.

Ford, who was jailed for 14 years for his part as one of the gang’s ringleaders, received an award for his bravery after helping to save victims of the bus bomb blast, in Tavistock Square, during the London terrorist attacks.